Archives for April 2015

Queen vs. PawnBy Bruce PandolfiniKing and queen against a lone king? No contest. With the move (it might be important to have the move to avoid stalemate), the force of king and queen wins hands down. But what if the inferior side has an extra pawn about to promote? Is it still a forced win? Well it often is, with some notable exceptions.Having the move, the queen can beat either a center pawn or a knight pawn usually without much trouble, even if the friendly king is a distance away. The winning idea is to give a series of checks, leading to the defending king's forced obstruction of its own pawn. That gives the attacker a tempo, which can be used to bring the friendly king a square closer. … [Read more...]

Queenfest V: Harem Scarum
By Jeff Coakley
Queenfest rolls on with more puzzles involving multiple queens. The task is to arrange the queens on the board to achieve certain goals.
The first part of the first puzzle is very easy, but figuring out the number of possible solutions is perhaps an interesting challenge.
Queenfest #16 (four queens)
[FEN “8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8”]
Place four queens on the board so that each
queen is defended by every other queen.
How many solutions are there?
Earlier Queenfests can be found in the archives: A Royal Heyday, Second to None, We Will Rock You, Breaking Free.
The next puzzle explores the lower limits of queen mobility. Except for 17a, all … [Read more...]

A Very Strong Tournament
By Bo Bredenhof
We are closing in on the fifth anniversary of CC Chronicles. It has been fun all the way. I hope you think the same. All previous columns can be found in the ChessCafe.com Archives.
This month I will look at one of the strongest ever CC tournaments: the Witold Bielecki Memorial, which finished recently after over three years play. Thirteen players with ten GM's and three SIM's with ratings between 2561 and 2729. The crosstable can be found at the ICCF website via their "Tables and results" page.
There were many interesting aspects to this tournament: one was that two players shared first place with identical results and SB points. Both Dr. … [Read more...]

Master and Patron: Frank Marshall and Herman Behr
By John S. Hilbert
Love of chess takes many forms. Some very lucky individuals have the combination of ability, opportunity (some might say necessity) and personality that allows them to become great masters. Others love the goddess Caissa just as deeply, but are unable or unwilling to devote the lifetime of toil required by her for the highest honors. And sometimes lovers of the game are in a position to offer material assistance to those whose devotion has cost them material gain.
Such was the case between Frank Marshall, long-time national champion of the United States, and Herman Behr, long-time lover of the game. When Marshall … [Read more...]

Cyclotronic Overdrive: Gearing Up
By Jeff Coakley
This column features seven cyclotrons. Please fasten your seatbelt. These puzzles sometimes spin out of control.
A cyclotron is a three-way switcheroo. Instead of switching two pieces, we switch three. In case you’re new to this type of puzzle, here are the rules.
CYCLOTRONS
Switch the position of three pieces so that Black is in checkmate. No actual chess moves are made. The pieces simply swap squares.
The pieces trade places in a “cycle”. Piece A goes to square B, piece B goes to square C, and piece C goes to square A.
Any three pieces can trade places. Colours do not matter. The cycled pieces can be all white, all … [Read more...]

The Return of the Aeroflot Festival in Moscow
By Geurt Gijssen
After a break of some years there was again an Aeroflot Festval in Moscow, and again at the Hotel Cosmos, a large hotel with 1,700 rooms. The main organiser of the event is Alexander Bakh, who deserves praise for his efforts to revive the Festival. Without him it would not have been possible.
There were again three tournaments: Tournament A was for players with a rating over 2549; Tournament B was for players with a rating higher than 2299 and lower than 2550; and Tournament C for those with a rating lower than 2300.
Each tournament had a different time control:
Tournament A: 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 … [Read more...]

Determining Candidate Move Safety
By Dan Heisman
Quote of the Month: “Whenever you think you have lost the meaning of life, look around you for those in need of your help and you shall find it.”
I consider the most important issue on a chess board to be safety (off the board it is having fun, but that’s another story...). Students often cite after a lost game:
“...I lost because I missed a tactic...”
...whereupon I usually provide a follow-up question, which they did not consider...
“That’s ambiguous: Did you mean that you missed, and thus allowed, a tactic for the opponent that won the game for him, or did you fail to see a tactic for you that would have won, or saved the … [Read more...]

Member Benefits

Members enjoy access to all archived content, including thousands of PDFs and hundreds of Ebooks - all free! To join: make a $25 (or more) tax deductible donation to ChessEdu.org and we will send your log in details for one-year access. (It may take up to 72 hours to receive your log in.)